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From Xaverian Mission NewsletterMay 2008
The Xaverian Missionaries in the Philippines established their commitment to
justice and peace primarily through two main areas: agrarian reform and
assistance to the Bishops in the concern for environmental justice for the
poorest.
One important area in environmental justice is the campaign of the Catholic
Bishops against mining companies that violate law and destroy the lands around
them through the wastes of mining.
Recently, a national conference of church leaders, and others, is looking at the
impact of mining on the integrity of creation and, in particular, on indigenous
peoples who are most affected. Fr. Casey, a Xaverian Missionary, has been the
leader of the anti-mining team for the religious men of the Philippines, in
service to the Bishops.
Enrico Cabanit was shopping in the open Market of Davao, Philippines, with his
daughter Dafodil when they were both brutally shot by unknown assailants. Eric
suffered five bullet wounds to the head and his daughter one to the chest.
Dafodil survived with a collapsed lung.
Eric Cabanit, a former member of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC)
Farmers Council and the 15- person Presidium of the Citizens' Congress for Truth
and Accountability (CCTA), has been known to his colleagues and friends as a
determined advocate for the causes of the Mindanao banana plantation workers.
“His active role in the campaign to place all landholdings of the banana magnate
Antonio
Floirendo, we believe, is the reason why he was mercilessly killed,” Dong
Calmada of the PEACE Foundation, Inc. said. “When he was still alive, Ka Eric
had told us that he had received threats from the camp of the plantation.
Likewise, his house had been under surveillance two weeks into his murder,” he
added.
The Xaverian Missionaries, through the efforts of Fr. Archie Casey, in
collaboration with organizations assisting these farmers, attempt to be a
support to these farmers as they seek ways to get back farmland promised to them
by the government for more than twenty-five years.
The redistribution of farmland has been stalled because of large landowners and
their own private “armies” that assist them to hold onto the land. Most farmland
is owned by large families. Many of these farmers had been tenant farmers on
these lands, some for generations.
Since the mid 1980’s there were efforts with the Church, government and other
sectors to create a process where by some lands could be re-distributed to poor
farmers if they qualified. The Catholic Church is asking the government to
review the law on the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program to make it more
responsive to the needs of small farmers.
The Xaverian Missionaries, in collaboration with organizations assisting these farmers, attempt to be a support to these farmers as they seek ways to get back farmland promised to them by the government for more than twenty-five years
Following the Bishops’ Plenary Assembly, their National Rural Congress II
Central Committee (NRC-II), in a statement, called for the government to act on
issues affecting the rural poor.
Quoting a pastoral statement in 2007, the NRC-II urged that attention be focused
“on the greatest victim of our unjust economic order, the rural poor, and the
diminishment of their dignity as people and as citizens.”
Big landowners and their employees are running amok of Philippine law and
international law, and with complete impunity, are engaged in a wide range of
criminal activity that seriously undermines rural poor people’s effective access
to their human rights. In this light, the Philippine state is failing abjectly
to fulfill its obligations to respect, protect and meet the human rights of the
rural poor population, being a signatory to the various relevant international
human rights law conventions.
Since 2001 the number of politically motivated killings in the Philippines has
been high, almost 800, and the death toll has mounted steadily. These killings
have eliminated civil society leaders, including human rights defenders, trade
unionists, and land reform advocates, as well as many others on the left of the
political spectrum. Of particular concern is the fact that those killed appear
to have been carefully selected and intentionally targeted.
The aim has been to intimidate a much larger number of civil society actors,
many of whom have, as a result, been placed on notice that the same fate awaits
them if they continue their activism. Through the Church and other
organizations, such as the United Nations, intense international pressure
focused on the Philippine government to resolve these killings and provide
protection to farmers who only seek their own human rights.
